Looking particularly for others that were current in the 19th Century. While I agree that there's no U.S. drinking song tradition to compare with those of England, Ireland, Scotland and Germany, I also think that there should be some others.

How about "HOT CORN, COLD CORN, bring along a demijohn"? Well, there's songs about whiskey and drinking, such as "COPPER KETTLE," but that's not the same as the songs that folks actually sang in bars, etc. There were elaborate drinking and tavern songs written in the 17th and 18th centuries, such as "The Tippling Philosophers," (words and tune on request, but you'd better really want it, because it's a *lot* of work), but they aren't trad even though they're old. They never passed into the oral tradition because they were too hard to sing.

I suspect that "Rum by Gum" [AWAY WITH RUM] and "The Nurse Pinched the Baby" are true American drinking songs. Both are tongue-in-cheek temperance songs.

Also, you get bawdy cowboy songs such as "The Old CHISHOLM TRAIL" which I'm sure were sung in dance halls etc by a rowdy drinking crowd. But that doesn't quite make them drinking songs because they are only incidentally about drinking.

When I was in college, we had dozens of favorites including "THE WINNIPEG WHORE," to the tune of "GOOD FISH CHOWDER," and "HAVE SOME MADEIRA, M'DEAR" which is of course not trad. Then there were crude things like "WALTZ ME AROUND AGAIN, WILLIE" and "ROLL YOUR LEG OVER." I think those would have to count. Also "THE LADY IN RED," i.e. "'Twas a cold winter's evening, the guests were all leaving, O'Leary was closing the bar...." My two-year-old cousin learned that from his grad-student dad in 1963 or so, which means he learned it in the oral tradition QED. Then there was "THE DRUNKEN MOUSE," ie "The liquor was spilled on the barroom floor ... " and The THE FROZEN LOGGER. The trouble with American drinking songs, perhaps, is that "real" folkies don't consider them folk songs because everybody sings them, not just folkies! -- Think about it. - Rita F

...and my rum-running granddad's song: There was a little manand he had a little canand he took it to the growlerya oughta heard the old man hollerno beer today, no beer today we don't sell beer on Sunday you better come around on Monday...harpgirl

Jack- The "Irish" one was published in the us, and creditied to Harrigan (of Harrigan and Hart). I'm trying to find a date for the American one--Bascomb Lamar Lunceford claims it, but I'm not sure if it was written by him or just published. Little Brown Jug is mid-1800s; most of the songs mentioned above are 20th century. (Copper Kettle is even the latter half of the 20th century, as is Chig-a-Lug).

I did find that the first use of "mountain dew" for moonshine liquor is 1829, as per Merriam Webster. Just remembered an 1860-ish parody which starts, Just before the battle mother,, I was drinking Mountain Dew...

Wow, Joe, THE WHIFFENPOOF SONG is a great addition to this thread. I've always loved it. My memory insists on three corrections to the DT version, though. Since I'm too lazy to see if I have it in a book, I'll admit that my memory often lies, but here are the changes I'd make:

To [not "from"] the tables down at Maury's ...

Sing [not "sang"] the Whiffenpoofs assembled, with their glasses raised on high ...

"Mavourneen" not "Mavoureen."

Were the Whiffenpoofs a glee club or chorus at Yale? Or somewhere? - Rita

Yeah, right. Love and kisses to you, Roger.... Well, actually, I AM quite pleased you found the song for us; but, if you don't mind, I refuse to qet quite as enthusiastic about it as Harpy is. Gee, Harpy, let's not get carried away here.

Rita, note this article about the Whiffenpoofs, an a capella group from Yale.

But Joeseph, my WASP family worshipped the grape...this song was right up there with God Save The Queen....I haven't lived closer than four hundred miles since I left home at eighteen because of the drinking, to tell you the truth...but I loved my grandparents...harpgirl (caught in a rare moment of truth)

I collected an American version of "All Gone for Grog" from a gal in Connecticut who had it from her grandfather who lived in South Carolina. Caroline and I recorded it on our New Harmony (C-100). Can't consider it a genuine "American" drinking song, however, since it has British roots. What about "We never stagger, we never fall; we sober up on wood alcohol... etc." We all grew up singing that one. Was it mentioned earlier? If so, I apologize for the duplication. It's very late!

Is "THERE IS A TAVERN IN THE TOWN" considered a drinking song? What about "JIM(MY) CRACK CORN"? (Depends on what the "corn" was, I suppose). And along with the Whiffenpoof song (which I love) aren't there some other college drinking songs from the 19th century? Blessings Barbara

Whiffenpoof, if anyoine doesn't happen to know, is a parody of Kipling's "GENTLEMEN-RANKERS" (I'm told that Rudyard wasn't fond of the parody). I think that it dates back to the early 1900s.

Sandy- I don't have a date for the Cheer, cheer for Old Notre Dame parody; I suspect that it's 20th century, though it's clearly folk. If there is an American drinking song tradition, it's likely to be imbedded strongly in college songs and military service songs.

I always thought Tavern in the Town was originally English. Anyone know? I suspect some of the standard college songs go back quite a ways, including the Souse Family, Beer, Beer for Old --- High etc, and "Oh it's Whiskey, whiskey whiskey that makes you feel so frisky in the Corps ... in the Quartermasters' Corps" go back a very long way indeed. I'd say WWII is the latest some of them could have originated. What about soldiers' drinking songs? Dick, you ought to have lots.

I also suspect you'll have to ask somebody's uncle or grandfather if you want any clues to the songs' age. They mostly aren't the sort of things that get written down. I learned a song in the 50's called Dear Old Donegal and I assumed it went back at most to the 30's, but someone here on Mudcat said his father and grandfather had sung it. There's a good chance it was an Irish-American music hall song; and "MacNamara's band" goes back to the 1890's. You just can't tell.

Thanks for the tip, Dick. I hadn't known that "whiffenpoof" was a parody. here's the Kipling original:

GENTLEMEN-RANKERSRudyard Kipling

To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned, To my brethren in their sorrow overseas, Sings a gentleman of England cleanly bred, machinely crammed, And a trooper of the Empress, if you please. Yea, a trooper of the forces who has run his own six horses, And faith he went the pace and went it blind, And the world was more than kin while he held the ready tin, But to-day the Sergeant's something less than kind.

Oh, it's sweet to sweat through stables, sweet to empty kitchen slops, And it's sweet to hear the tales the troopers tell, To dance with blowzy housemaids at the regimental hops And thrash the cad who says you waltz too well. Yes, it makes you cock-a-hoop to be "Rider" to your troop, And branded with a blasted worsted spur, When you envy, O how keenly, one poor Tommy being cleanly Who blacks your boots and sometimes calls you "Sir".

If the home we never write to, and the oaths we never keep, And all we know most distant and most dear, Across the snoring barrack-room return to break our sleep, Can you blame us if we soak ourselves in beer? When the drunken comrade mutters and the great guard-lantern gutters And the horror of our fall is written plain, Every secret, self-revealing on the aching white-washed ceiling, Do you wonder that we drug ourselves from pain?

We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth, We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung, And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth. God help us, for we knew the worst too young! Our shame is clean repentance for the crime that brought the sentence, Our pride it is to know no spur of pride, And the Curse of Reuben holds us till an alien turf enfolds us And we die, and none can tell Them where we died.

Mory's Association is a private club in the vicinity of Yale, serving food and alcohol. Around 1909, when the Whiffenpoof Song was written, it was on Temple Street in New Haven, though it moved many years ago to York Street, where it remains today, between Toad's Place and the Hall of Graduate Studies.

The 19th Century U.S. Army adapted many foreign tunes and changed the words up, essentially making them American Army drinking songs. "O'Riley" is one in particular that is a lot of fun. It uses an Irish tune, but the verbage is U.S. I've actually marched modern troops to this song and it works, except for some of the slang which is explained below. Some of my lines might be slightly in the wrong order:

O'Riley was a soldier, the finest in Company B. In all the bloomin' regiment no finer man than he. He was the ranking Noncom, he knew his business well. But ever since he tumbled down the pole* O'Riley's gone to Hell.

Chorus

O'Riley's gone to Hell Since down the pole he fell He drank up all the bug juice The whiskey man would sell. They got him in the mill They ran him through their still His bobtail's* coming back by mail O'Riley's gone to Hell.

O'Riley hit the bottle after six years up the pole. He blew himself in Casey's place and then went in the hole. He drank with all the rookies and shoved his face as well. The whole unit's on the bum O'Riley's gone to Hell.

Chorus

O'Riley stole a blanket and shoved* it up I hear. He shoved it for a dolaar and invested it in beer. He licked the coffee cooler* because he said he'd tell. He's absent ten days without leave. O'Riley's gone to Hell.

Chorus

They'll try him by courtsmartial, he'll never stand a chance To tell them how his mither died or some such song and dance. You'll soon find him down in Battery Q* a whilin' way the hours, A big red P stamped on his back, O'Riley's gone to Hell.

Dick: You might want to check out my recordings of Frank Proffitt, North Carolina traditional singer. He sings "I'll Never Get Drunk No More," "Moonshine" (Come all you people if you want to hear of the kind of booze we make around here. It's made 'way back in the rocks and hills, where there's plenty of moonshine stills), and one that he wrote himself: "Blackberry Wine." The moonshine song, by the way, also shows up in Morris' Folksongs of Florida. I just got a paperback edition from the big remainder house, Edward Hamilton, Bookseller, in Falls Village, Connecticut. He has a web site. CLICK HERE. See you at Old Songs!

And then there's the young man who left his country home and came to the city to seek employment... I knew this one as "THE FATAL GLASS OF BEER", and as I recall it's called something different in DT. Are satirical anti-drinking songs drinking songs? Like Away with Rum by Gum? I've always thought from the language and the stories that these two and the Inebriate and the Pig were songs from Prohibition or just before. And Rita, like what you said about a song's age, I tend to think of a song as American if it was in my parents old songbook with things like Jimmy Crack Corn, The Man on The Flying Trapeze, Old Black Joe and Tenting Tonight, but it's an unwarranted assumption. Blessings, Barbara

Charlie, yeah, I found out about Mory's Temple Bar, run by Louis something-or-other, (i.e. "the place where Louis dwells") when I followed Joe's link to the official Whiffenpoof web site and read their history, written by one of the original five who started singing together in 1909. What a great site! -- They also describe how the song was written as a parody of Gentlemen Rankers.

Isn't it queer how some women drink beer,They drink and they drink and get tight,And the new license plan--well, it aint worth a damn,In Soho on Saturday night.

They tell me in Soho on Saturday night,Most everyone that you meet they are tight,The men with their bottles and their wives with a can,And the young girls go browsing the streets like a man.One woman I met,She got soaking wet,She fell in the sewer and got soaking wet.

Oh, isn't it queer...

They all toss their drinks,Carnegie does the same,As soon as you can drink 'em down, a round of drinks they came,Oliver, he got blind drunk,Carnegie couldn't see,Frick was bad but Mellon wasA damn site worse than me.

When I was in college in the late sixties, a friend would sing "DRUNK LAST NIGHT". That song is indeed in the folk song database for Mudcat. It has always been my contention that any song which you can sing or hum (depending on your condition while drinking) qualifies as a drinking song. In this case it is usually the singer and not the song.

After a quick sifting of the thread I fail to see some favorites from Oscar Brand's "Drinking Songs" such as The Red Light Saloon and the Rum Runner's Song. Another source of 19th century drinking songs would be READ 'EM & WEEP: The Songs We Forgot to Remember by Sigmund Spaeth; I always liked:

Homeward to their mother, two working men did come, Weary from their honest toil and lighted up with rum; Supper was not ready; one aimed a brutal blow, When the blue-eyed baby stopp'd them, saying "Brothers, don't do so. Don't swat your mother, boys just 'cause she's old! Don't mop the floor with her face. Think of her love as a treasure of gold, Shining thro' shame and disgrace; Don't put the rocking chair next to her eye; Don't bounce the lamp off her bean! Angels are watching you up in the sky, Don't swat your mother, boys, it's mean!"

(from dick greenhaus) To me, at least, a drinking song (in England) seems to be a song praising drink: BACK AND SIDE GO BARE, Good Ale, Barley Mow, Landlord Fill the Flowing Bowl, etc. In the States, there are relatively few of these, at least prior to 1900. Most American deinking songs were either warnings about the perils of drink, or songs (like Sweet Adeline) that were sung while drinking. Little Brown Jug is an exception, but I don't know how old it is. Just musing on the Puritan/Methodist ethic in America.

Ni estas juna ŝafidar': Ba! Ba! Ba! Malgrandaj ŝafoj en erar': Ba-a-a! Junaj sinjoroj en gaja ebri', kondamnitaj ĉiuj ni, Dio kompatu al tiaj ĉi: Ba, ba, ba! Both the DT and the Whiffenpoofs' own lyrics page perpetuate the (probable mis-)attribution of the tune to Tod B. Galloway; as my page and the Whiffenpoofs' history page indicate, the probable composer was Guy Scull, and the roots of at least the lead-off portion of the tune are probably from a Negro Spiritual (and as we know many of those are in turn from Anglo-Irish folk sources).

"Saloon", "Saloon", "Saloon". It runs through my head like a tune. I don't like cafe and I hate cabaret, but just mention "saloon" and my cares fade away. For it brings back a fond recollection Of a little old low-ceilinged room With a bar and a rail and a foam-bedecked pail... "Saloon", "Saloon", "Saloon".

Verse 1: I've been looking through the dictionary For a word that's always running through my (run-ning through my mind). Though I love the name of Mother, I was looking for another, And I must confess that word I cannot (word I cannot find). Can it be that all its glories are forgotten, And it's buried with the language of the (lan-guage of the Greek)? If it is 'twill ever linger in my mem'ry As the first word that I heard my daddy (heard my daddy speak).

Chorus 1: Saloon, Saloon, Saloon (saloon). It runs through my brain like a (brain like a tune). I don't like cafe, And I hate cabaret, But just mention saloon and my cares fade away. For it brings back a fond recollection of a little old low ceiling (low ceiling room). With a bar, and a rail, and a dime, and a, (sploosh), pail. Saloon, saloon, saloon.

Verse 2: I can picture swinging doors wide open. I can almost see the sawdust on the (sawdust on the floor). And I dream of pals and cronies drinking highballs, steins and ponies, I can see the name of (*)"Ehret" on the (Ehret on the door). But the free lunch counter now is but a mem'ry, It has vanished with the joys we used to (joys we used to know). Never more we'll hear that old familiar parting: Just one drink, boys, just one more, before we (more before we go).

Chorus 2: Saloon, Saloon, Saloon. Have you been forgotten (for-got-ten so soon). You nestled so sweet in that little side street, So respected, protected by cops on the beat. Since you've left us the world seems in darkness, like a cloud passing over the (o-ver the moon). No more joys in my life, no more lies to my, (gasp), wife. Saloon, saloon, saloon.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (*) alternates: "I can see the sign says 'Enter' on the door." "I can see the name of 'Coo-ors' on the door." A little internet search turned up the info that: Ehret was not the name of a saloon, it was the top selling American beer at the turn of the century (1900, not 2000), from German immigrant George Ehret's Hell Gate Brewery near the East River in New York City, between 3rd & 2nd Aves, and 91st & 94th Streets. It would be like having a sign of "Coors" or "Fat Tire" on the door. (If you're not from Colorado, USA, it might be like having a sign of "Guinness", or "Foster's", or "Labatt", "Beck's" ...)

I guess this is really a song about drinking, rather than a drinking song, as such. Remembering all the words might be a challenge while imbibing.

What about david allen coe? Blame it on the whiskey & gin,I took my male ego & place it under lock & key,I swore no god dang woman would ever make a fool of me! But then I met this bar made & my whole damn world caved in! Heaven knows when she sucked my toes, I was pu@@y whipped again ,pu@@y whipped again, blame it on the on the whiskey & gin oh lord I'm pu@@y whipped again! Every david allen coe song had to be written while he was drunk so toss that on the juke box & watch every american hard working blue collar white boy howling like a pack of wolves

"Don't Swat Your Mother" was published in Porter and Steele's Four Heart Songs of Hearth and Home (New Haven, 1919). The Yale Library has a copy of the sheet music in their holdings. The other songs are "Dry as a camel's tonsils; or, After July, O Lord," "Take me back to no man's land" and "Oh, gosh, ain't I glad to get home."

Would some kind Newhavenite please make a copy (at least of "Don't Swat") and send me a scan? If you PM me, I can furnish an email addy. Then I can post ABC(s) and MIDI(s) to Mudcat for the world to enjoy.

First of first, I'm a yankee doodle dandy i s a great American drinking song, but when you go abroad, or at least when I have, the most popular american drinking song that foreigners are aware of is HOME on the Range.. sing it right now, you already feel like having a little moonshine.